Biden hits the road in what looks like preview of reelection campaign
W. James Antle III
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Fresh from the State of the Union address, President Joe Biden and his team are taking their show on the road.
Biden and his Cabinet are fanning out across the country, visiting 20 states in what looks like the next phase of the president’s 2024 reelection campaign soft launch. But the stated purpose is to sell the benefits of Biden’s economic agenda.
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“During the State of the Union, President Biden will outline how the past two years [have] seen historic job growth, falling inflation, higher wages, and record investments coming back to America,” a White House announcement said. “The economic travel blitz showcases how the president’s vision is creating jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure, lowering costs for families, tackling climate change, investing in our future and delivering for families too often left behind.”
The two are not unrelated, however. The economy has been a persistent weak spot for Biden. His economic approval rating stood at 38% the week of the State of the Union, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average. That’s a full 6 points lower than his approval overall and underwater by nearly 20 points.
Republicans now control the House in large part because voters believed the main result of the spending Democrats passed and Biden signed into law was inflation, which at one point last year was running at a 41-year high.
Biden and his Cabinet tried a version of this tour during the midterm elections, with mixed results. Then Biden traveled mainly to reliably Democratic states, though sometimes campaigning on behalf of candidates in competitive races, promoting local infrastructure projects or the opening of semiconductor plants.
Democrats outperformed expectations in the midterm elections, minimizing Republican gains in the House and actually adding a seat in the Senate. But the bottom line is Democrats still lost their House majority and with it the ability to pass bills through reconciliation. So they can’t get legislation through the House without GOP support, and Republican senators can filibuster virtually any bill they want.
This time around, Biden is going to the battleground states. He has been to Wisconsin, which famously eluded Hillary Clinton in 2016. He has traveled to Florida, the home of his top two Republican rivals, Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. He has gone to Georgia, after avoiding the state when Democratic control of the Senate hinged on Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) winning reelection in a runoff. Even in the midterm elections, Biden was a major fixture in Pennsylvania, his home turf and a place where Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) needed surrogates.
Biden, 80, hasn’t announced for reelection yet. His lieutenants are mostly covered under the Hatch Act, so they can promote administration initiatives but are barred from overt electioneering. But both Biden’s travel itinerary and points of emphasis strongly suggest a campaign. He basked in chants of “four more years” at the Democratic National Committee, asking the crowd if they were with him, and uttered the phrase “finish the job” a dozen times in the State of the Union.
The president and his deputies are also making a clear play for the blue-collar workers who have gravitated away from the Democratic Party in recent decades, with especially disastrous results for the party in 2016. Biden calls it his “blue-collar blueprint,” arguing that he is the president who is really bringing manufacturing back to the United States.
All this implies that Biden expects to run in 2024 against Trump or someone like him. His arguments and travel schedule are increasingly aimed at blunting the populist GOP’s appeal. This could also come in handy in next year’s Senate races, where Democrats are in a worse position than last year and incumbents including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are up for reelection. The Buckeye State sent Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) to Washington on a populist platform in November.
Biden isn’t giving short shrift to Democratic bastions. He has touted local projects in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Turning out the party’s base, which multiple polls suggest is unenthusiastic about Biden running for a second term, will also be critical in a close race. Every presidential election since 2000 has been competitive, with the exception of 2008, when the winner still got less than 53% of the national popular vote, and Trump has been stronger than other Republicans in the Rust Belt.
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Democratic strategists believe that as an incumbent president, Biden has time before getting into the race. Of major candidates, only Trump has declared, with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley soon poised to join him. No major Democrat currently looks inclined to enter the race.
It nevertheless looks like Biden’s next move is coming soon, perhaps to a community near you.